This Saturday’s excursion went to Le Domaine des Fauves

Le Domaines des Fauves is a privately owned “amateur” zoo about an hour and a half’s drive from our place and slightly less than an hours drive from Lyon. My dear wife found a newspaper article about this zoo already last year when we were doing a lot of excursions that summer but we never got around to go there. We had already made quite a few excursions that summer and it was quite a bit of a drive for something that could very well be a bit of a disappointment given that the place is pretty much run by “happy amateurs”.

Anyway, this year, more specifically today, we got around to make the trip. What we found was quite okay. It did perhaps not blow your socks off but it is a quite well run establishment indeed. The entree, as you can see from the photos, is fairly meh but the interior is quite a bit better than the impression the exterior gives. It is not very big, you can easily walk through it in an hour or so, but it is quite well kept and the animals looks quite healthy. Cassandra, who was the one who wanted to go there since they have quite a few of the large cats, was quite happy.

It was a excellent day for an excursion as well. Nice, warm and sunny. Well, it was nice if you have air-conditioning in the car which I of course have. Otherwise a one and a half hour’s drive in 30+ degrees would have been…not so nice. I simply cannot understand that most Europeans seem to consider air-conditioning in their cars a luxury. Especially in the south of Europe. I consider it a necessity and a safety measure. You just cannot be alert as a driver when your car turns into a sauna.

After the visit we went to a neighbouring village for a quick lunch, which turned out to be pizza, before we drove back home. We found a quite nice place with a real wood-fired pizza oven. The pizzas were a bargain compared to the restaurant prices in the over-priced region where we live as well.

It was difficult to take photos of most of the more interesting animals since they where either behind bars that obstructed the view for the camera or behind glass that also screwed the photo opportunities. Still, I took a few shots with my I-cannot-be-bothered-to-schlepp-my-big-SLR-with-me-but-still-want-something-better-than-a-standard-compact pro-compact camera of which I uploaded ten to my Miscellaneous photo album on SkyDrive.

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